282 SOME NOXIOUS INSECTS. 



In the hotter parts of the world, however, the wood- 

 devouring insects are more than mere annoyances in 

 houses, the most dreaded of them all being the Termites 

 or "White Ants. They will devour every piece of wood- 

 work in the house. They find their way into beams, and 

 eat the whole of the wood, with the exception of a shell 

 scarcely thicker than the paper on which this narrative 

 is printed. 



They will attack a table, eating their way through the 



GREAT TERMITE. 



floor into the legs, and hollowing it so that on leaning 

 upon the table, apparently sound as it is, it breaks down 

 and crumbles into a heap of dusty fragments. They 

 have even been known to get into a garden and hollow 

 out the peasticks, so that the first wind blew them down 

 together with their burden. If they find their way into 

 boxes in which papers are kept, they will devour almost 

 the whole of every bundle, leaving nothing but the 

 uppermost sheet and the edges of the others. 



